From: StoneOx17@aol.com
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 20:14:15 EST
Subject: Re: (urth) PEACE: Gold hunt's end at the box in the hole 

Mantis quotes:
> Roy quoted Stone Ox:
> >>I had assumed that they found a flat stone shaped
> >>roughly like the top of a treasure box, which Weer
> >>then used as a tombstone when he buried Lois in
> >>the hole they dug.

> >Why would a murderer mark the grave of his victim?

> While I argue against Weer murdering Lois, still, the text is clear that
> ghosts can be pinned down and this is why Weer would use the stone: 
> not to mark the grave (though it would do that as well) but to pin the 
> ghost down so she wouldn't come after him.  Like a stake through the 
> heart of a vampire (iirc the old tradition of pinning them down rather than 
> turning them to dust).

That's right.  If Weer laid the stone down flat (like a porch step) only he 
would know it marked Lois's grave.  Suppose he kills her (most likely, 
the gun went off accidentally while they were fighting for it).  He now has
a body, and a grave and stone at hand.  I think Wolfe very deliberately 
placed that section about the Bell witch and the porch step "tombstone" 
in the middle of Lois's story (i.e., Weer's memories of Lois elicited his 
memories of the Bell witch episode) because of these parallels.

-- Stone Ox

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